Dwight Aspinwall & Perry Dowst

Gear Savants

What do you get when two New Hampshire engineers train their Ivy League brains on the lowly camp stove? Say hello to the Jetboil, a snazzy, all-in-one portable kitchen thatin 11 months on the markethas revolutionized backcountry cooking. It began as a brainstorm back in the nineties, when software engineer Dwight Aspinwall, now 43, was trekking Tasmania's rain- and wind-pummeled South Coast Track. Every day, he'd watch his Aussie friends root around in their packs for their stoves, their pots, and their matches to make afternoon tea. Gotta be a better way, he thought. In 2001, Aspinwall teamed up with his second cousin, engineer Perry Dowst, 44. Three years and a few accidental fires later, the $80 Jetboil Personal Cooking System was bornan integrated fuel burner/pot/mug combo with a Star Treklooking "FluxRing" heat exchanger that gives it double the heat-transfer efficiency of most other backpacking stoves. All you really need to know, though, is that, with infomercial-worthy ease and a flick of a knob (no lighter required!), it boils a cup of water in 60 seconds and uses 50 percent less fuel than a standard camp stove to do it. Since arriving in outdoor stores last January, Jetboil has become the buzz of bivy ledges and surf breaks nationwidewith everyone from firefighters to alpinists preaching the gospel of a fast cup of joe on the go. "A monkey could put this thing together and start boiling water within a minute," says mountain guide Steven Tickle, who packed Jetboils for his clients' fast-and-light assault on Nepal's 22,494-foot Ama Dablam this fall. "You can always rely on it."